Richman
A surname that may come from the personal name Richard, though some 19th-century writers thought it could also be a form of Richmond or Rickman.
The #5,289 most common surname in the United States (2010 Census) — about 1 in every 46,900 Americans shares it.
Etymology
The surname is usually explained as a descendant of the medieval personal name Richard, with the ending -man used in the sense of “the man of” or “son of.” Some older writers also suggested it may be a spelling or pronunciation shift from Rickman, or even a corruption of Richmond, but those explanations were not treated as certain. In short, the name is probably built on Richard, and literally means something like “Richard’s man” or “Richard’s descendant.”
History
Bardsley cites medieval forms such as Richman as a baptismal surname and links it with Richard and Rickard. Lower, however, was skeptical of a direct Richard explanation for Richman and thought it might instead reflect Richmond, while still accepting Rickman as a separate name of Germanic type. In modern English usage, Richman survives as a relatively uncommon surname, especially in Britain and the United States.
Origin
Regions
Variant spellings
Fun fact
Some old surname writers used Richman as evidence in arguments about the place-name Rickmansworth, showing how tightly surname and place-name scholarship were once intertwined.
From the historical record
“Richard ; the son of Richard. RICHMAN. Perhaps a corruption of Richmond. But see Rickman. RICHINIOND. A pLice in the arrondisse- rnent of Neufchatel in Norniand}' ; also the famous castle of Richmond in the N. Riding of Yorkshire, built by the great Earl Alan, temp. Will. Conq., for defence against the disinherited…”
— Patronymica Britannica: a dictionary of the family names of the United Kingdom